Coca-Cola boss condemns Government sugar tax

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The head of Coca-Cola in the UK has launched a withering attack on George Osborne’s sugar tax, saying it will not work and will hit the poorest members of society hardest.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Jon Woods, the general manager of Coca-Cola UK & Ireland, said: “There is no reliable evidence from anywhere in the world that shows taxing food and drink – let alone just some soft drinks – has changed people’s behaviour and made them thinner.”

In his first major comments since the tax was announced in the March Budget, Mr Woods criticised the new levy, which the Treasury estimates could bring in £520m in its first year. “It will also hit consumers in the pocket regardless of what they drink,”...